The Blind Lead The Blind
by Yalson
Summary: Hornet scout lance get jumped while causing havoc on a strangely quiet Capellan border world. First instalments of a new story. Some bad language. Machine violence only. Constructive feedback and corrections welcome. Chapter 5 now up.
1. Chapter 1

Berry ducked involuntarily. A PPC bolt lanced past the shoulder of her mech, passing so close she imagined she heard the spit and crack of the static charge through the armoured canopy of the Raven's cockpit. Straightening up in her seat, she glanced to her right to check on her lancemates. Falco's Locust was pounding ahead like an ostrich and Virus's Spector was raising dust close on its heels. Angel's Cougar was further away and a short distance behind them. As Berry watched, it was straddled by a flurry of explosions from a salvo of LRM rounds.

"Ow!" shouted Angel, and swore copiously. The former Clan mech stumbled, but stayed on its feet. Regaining its stride, it continued its headlong dash for safety, trailing smoke from its back.

Berry checked her readouts in the HUD. Speed fluctuating between 90 and 100kph, according to the gradients in the stony, gently undulating desert valley surface south of the base. A few scorches to her rear armour, but integrity otherwise good. Three red dots, representing the still-operational elements of the enemy heavy lance, were quickly falling behind, range 750m and increasing. Whether it was due to old optics, play in the joints and myomers or just poor gunnery, they were finding it hard to hit the fast moving scouts. Hits from weapons with the range had thus far caused little damage, and the lance was in good enough shape to withstand any more they might take.

All the Raven's weapons were loaded and ready to fire, although in this situation there wasn't much to shoot at. There was a red dot at the far left edge of Berry's scanner, but it showed as a Bulldog and would never get into range at the lance's current heading and speed. Nav Epsilon was 11k ahead. Friendly forces strong enough to withstand anything on planet were there to welcome them back into the fold.

Easy In, Easy Out.

Berry briefly considered how the sortie had gone so far and really couldn't fault a thing. Hornet lance had been combat-dropped about 20k out from their target and made their run-in to the Capellan base at Nav Alpha using a nap-of-the-land approach with sensors down, so as to draw as little attention as possible. Orbital recon through the wide, cloudless skies of Camp Marriott had given them a best approach and nav points to follow and they had used these to create their own route through the shifting sands north of Alpha that reduced the chance of them or their dust trails being seen from the base. The plan seemed to work. They had encountered nothing on the approach more threatening than a Sand Buzzard. Powering down at the muster point, the mechs had been parked in the lee of a huge dune and the lance's mechwarriors had studied the maps and recon on a folding table Angel had strapped to the leg of her Cougar. Three of them had pored over the images whilst smoking cigars and drinking a strange, alcohol-free brandy that Falco had supplied for the purpose. Berry had felt like a General from old Earth planning a battle in the North African desert. Falco himself had climbed to the top of the dune to study for dust plumes with binoculars. He had seen some on the horizon, but they had obviously been on a close patrol of the base and had stayed well off. Outside of his mech he was more comfortable with his own company, and Berry was happy to leave the veteran merc on watch, albeit with specific instructions to change over with one of the others if he felt the slightest bit tired.

After planning the route, they had waited for the appointed time, filling the time by playing cards and swapping stories. Periodically Berry would change the watch for a time to allow Falco to stretch his legs. He would spend the time checking over his Locust, the _Braille Warning_, and smoking his long, slim, spice-scented cigarettes. Berry had asked him once why he had given his mech such an odd name. He had smiled and responded, "because being a scout pilot is like the blind leading the blind."

The wait had been for their comrades from Dingo medium lance to draw off the mechs defending the base. They and the rest of the friendly forces had touched down at Nav Omega and set up a base, codenamed 'Wingate'. Dingo were to perform a hit-and-run on the south side of Alpha, luring as many assets as they could into a trap. There, the serious firepower of the two heavy lances, Charger and Bison, would cut them down. While this was going on, Hornet lance were to run through the base from north to south with cameras rolling, identifying any juicy salvage and targets for later operations and causing as much damage and chaos as they could on the way through, before making a break for Omega and the safety of their comrades' weapons umbrella.

This attack was just the first stage of an overall plan to strike at the four oddly isolated bases scattered across the barren western landmass of Camp Marriott, a Capellan world near the border with the Federated Suns and the Periphery. The bases formed the corners of a rough rectangle in a parched valley. Wingate had been erected roughly at its centre. All of the Liao outposts were close enough together to strike at from Wingate, but far enough from each other to make mutual support difficult.

The merc force was made up of elements of the Heron Rifles and the 66˚ Caribinieri, two mercenary commands in the employ of House Davion. The Herons had supplied Hornet, Dingo and Bison lances, whilst the 66° had brought Charger lance to the operation. The two companies had worked together before and the pilots knew each other well. Berry had chuckled at the pre-mission briefing as individuals scanned the room for familiar faces and old friendships, rivalries and love affairs had been silently rekindled by momentary glances.

The combined unit were charged with attacking each of the Liao sites in turn, denuding them of as much defensive materiel as they could, before returning to each, destroying any remaining defences piecemeal and plundering anything of value they could find. The deal said they could keep any salvage they recovered.

The opening of 'Operation Doorbell I' had played out perfectly. Hornet had powered up at the time agreed and followed their route between the dunes to the outskirts of the base. They achieved complete surprise and destroyed two laser turrets while they were still pointing southwards, toward where Dingo lance had made their lightning attack. The remaining emplacements had turned their guns on the onrushing light mechs, but their fire was ill-coordinated and three more were destroyed as they charged past. Virus and Falco then found the turret control tower and levelled it, leaving base defence in the hands of a few light tanks and skimmers and a heavy lance of punchy but tired designs. They had been picketing an area beyond the southern perimeter and immediately turned back towards the base, but too late to do anything about Hornet lance's brief rampage through it. The tanks and skimmers dotted around the base were destroyed piecemeal by Berry and her comrades as they came upon them. They also took two generators and a communications complex out of action, further weakening the site, before charging on, using the remaining buildings as cover against the fire of the returning heavies. By the time they crossed the southern threshold, they had already bypassed the defending lance, ducking and dodging incoming lasers, missiles and projectiles whilst attempting to score some hits of their own. They had concentrated their fire on an already-damaged Crusader, presumably hit during Dingo lance's earlier sortie. Combined fire disabled one of the Crusader's legs and left it virtually stranded. The remaining heavies, two Catapults and a battered-looking Warhammer, gave chase to little effect. Hornet lance were out and free.

They thumped on through the wilderness, with Epsilon ahead. The rest of the Herons at Wingate would not be rushing out to meet their kin. The hope was that their location and strength on planet would not yet be known by the defending Liao forces, so strict discipline remained in force.

"Berry!" Angel's voice on the comms. Dammit. Still a long way from safety. "Berry, I've got incoming bogies on my right. Scanners show them as choppers. Warriors, mostly, with Cavalrys and Nightwinds mixed in. Jeez, there must be twenty aircraft out there, closing in fast."

"Shit." If left unchecked, the massed choppers were fast enough to slot in behind the retreating scouts and lacerate their rear armour. Alternatively, Hornet lance could stand and fight and risk being pounded to atoms by their massed fire, as well as allowing the outpaced heavies to catch them up and join in the fray, with surely fatal results. Not much of a choice. Decision time.

"Hornet lance, turn towards the incoming choppers. Try not to get tangled close up, but pick them off with as much range as you've got. They won't need much to take them down, but don't let them swarm you, or you'll be in trouble. And _keep moving!_"

She watched as her lance veered right to meet the attackers. The swarm of red dots now filled a bright wedge on the edge of her scanner. She watched as Virus reached the point where his large laser came into range. The weapon lanced out a beam and a chopper slowly began to tumble from the sky. Angel followed, despatching more with ER large lasers and LRMs. Falco tried to bat another away, but his mediums had neither the range nor the power. The Locust got too close and was engulfed in a cloud of missile fire. Instead of turning, however, he charged straight on under the cloud of helicopters, causing them to hesitate and turn after him. Two collided whilst manouvering.

"Ha ha!" shouted Virus, gleefully. "That's five down already."

Falco, you're a genius, thought Berry. Mad, but a genius. The choppers were tightly packed and being so hemmed in, they seemed overcome by indecision. Berry got as close as she dared and alpha-struck into the chattering mass of aircraft. Another chopper slid woozily from the sky and nose-dived to its destruction. Weapons recharged, Angel and Virus picked off another two from the swarm. Berry flicked her HUD to check the condition of Falco's Locust. He had made it through the shadow of the hovering VTOLs and out the other side, and was now peeling round at top speed to make another run. Apart from a few upper body hits, the little scout still seemed in good shape, but Berry worried about his chances doing that again more than once.

A lock-on tone woke her from her tactical evaluation. A salvo of LRMs fell all around her, a couple crashing into the right side of her Raven. She opened her mouth to curse, but internalised it, ramping up the speed on her mech. The choppers were beginning to disperse

"What are we up to?" asked Angel. "Who's keeping score?"

"Forget the score. I want you all to get up to full speed and skirt round the remaining aerial threats. Try and keep at maximum range, but keep them penned in together. If we run round them in big circles, we might be able to confuse them and avoid being targeted. All commence corral manoeuvre, anti-clockwise, NOW!"

Her lancemates' mechs seemed to jerk surprisedly into action and began thudding in big circles round the chattering helicopters. Berry joined the procession.

"HERONS, FIRE AT WILL!" yelled Berry. To her surprise, she found herself laughing as she launched repeated alpha strikes into the buzzing mass of choppers.

This was a most ridiculous situation. Someone had fucked up. Hornet lance had played their part to perfection and had been on the run-in of a virtually perfect sortie. Then they had been ambushed by a veritable _hive_ of choppers, meaning that someone had missed an entire airbase. There was an installation measuring several square kilometres within the mission recon boundaries, and someone had missed the _whole thing_. She laughed again. It was okay. The choppers were being cut down quicker than she expected and the heavy lance hadn't showed yet. Falco's Locust was looking a bit rough, but he was a big boy and he knew when to step back. The fire from the swarm was slackening as their number depleted. Hornet lance would get back to base and then they could find out why no-one picked this lot up. The blind leading the blind, indeed.

"Falco, break off and make for Epsilon. We can take the rest. Tell the force commander what has happened, where we are and that there is a possibility we have a part-lance of heavies inbound."

"Sir," replied Falco. The little Locust broke off from the circuit and opened up to full speed towards the horizon. The helicopters didn't chase him.

No sign of the following lance yet. They might have given up when the Hornets got out of range. If not, they would be here any moment. Berry looked up. Her lancemates had been doing terrible execution on the enemy machines. As she watched, Virus opened up on the choppers again and a Nightwind slid towards the ground. There were now only seven left. The ground was littered with wreckage and the Hornet pilots were having to keep one eye on their target and one on where they were going. She rounded a recently downed Warrior, keeping it between her and her target, and opened fire. The lasers missed, but the last two missiles in the salvo caught the chopper, a Cavalry, on the chin. The explosions caused it to reel, but didn't bring it down. Berry ducked behind another wreck and then out the other side, where she was caught by a barrage of SRMs. The Raven staggered and nearly collapsed. Warning panels lit up on the HUD. Her left leg and torso turned red in the integrity display. Another one of those and she might go down and not get up again. She waited until the Raven was steady again and lined up for another shot. The Cavalry was having trouble tracking the fast-moving Raven closer in and was still side on when Berry hooked up. She launched another alpha strike. The lasers caught the chopper high on the engine cover. The missile salvo plastered the helicopter's flank around the same area, but one caught it higher up on the rotor shaft. The hub came away, shattered blades falling like confetti. The Cavalry, suddenly separated from its means of support, dropped like a stone in an almost comical fashion to meet the desert floor with a shuddering impact. She checked the scanner again, but it was almost impossible to make anything out in the pulsing red glare of the warning lights in the cockpit.

"Aah!" A pained yell dragged her away. Virus's Spector was emerging from the smoke of a missile barrage.

"You okay, Virus?" The comms crackled, interspersed with curses and shouts.

"Missile impact made the fucking fire extinguisher go off!" The radio lapsed back into static punctuated by furious muttering.

Berry had to force herself not to giggle. She heard Angel also trying to stifle a laugh.

"It's not fucking funny! The cockpit's covered in white powder and I can't read half the screens!" shouted Virus. He brought down another chopper. There were now only four helicopters left. With so few remaining, they were harder to keep herded together and could move with greater freedom, making them harder to hit and their fire more accurate.

"Hornet lance, cease corral manoeuvre. Engage aerial targets at will." She spotted an opportunity immediately. A Warrior was trying to line up Virus, which allowed Berry to catch it unawares from behind. She fired all her weapons into the machine's underside and it tumbled out of the sky, exploding from within as its remaining munitions detonated. She saw another Warrior sliding crazily downwards beyond it.

"Status," Berry shouted.

"Two left," replied Angel.

"One left," responded Virus.

"JESUS!" Berry yelled. A fusillade of SRM rounds slammed into the Raven's back. The landscape rolled drunkenly as the mech pitched forward with the impact. What seemed like every single light and panel in the cockpit lit up with a burning red. "Ah! What the hell?!" A shadow passed over her cockpit. She looked up and saw the wreck of the last chopper roll lazily out of the sky from the top of her screen to crash lifelessly into the desert in front of her.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's all, folks!" trilled Angel. Berry didn't respond. She checked her instruments and read-outs. Most of them were now flashing red and most of her systems had sustained some sort of damage. The last salvo must have been a full dozen SRMs from a Cavalry. She checked the status of her lancemates. Both were in pretty good shape, aside from a few scratches and grazes. Apart from the insistent noise of a warning buzzer, everything was now silent.

"You alright, sir?" asked Virus, after a pause.

"I took a volley in the back and now there are more flashing lights in my cockpit than on a whorehouse dancefloor," Berry answered, distractedly.

"I'd lend you a fire extinguisher," said Virus, thoughtfully, "but I don't have one anymore."

"Your concern is noted," Berry deadpanned back. She sighed. "OK, Hornets. Let's move out to Nav Epsilon. I'm going to have to check for cracks so keep to three-quarters speed. I don't want to end up stranded out here on my own because my knees have buckled and you two are sunning yourselves back at base."

Some of the red lights in the HUD had now blinked out or changed to less alarming colours, but the overall effect was still rather less relaxed than she would have liked. Virus and Angel accelerated off. Berry slowly wound the Raven up. Nothing exploded or caught fire, so she edged it higher by careful increments. Heat wasn't dissipating properly, but was still within safe limits. The missile flurry had probably cracked or shattered a heatsink or two.

She checked her scanner. She was sure she'd seen a red dot at the very edge, but it was hard to make out brief enemy contacts at the very edge of the scope with so many red lights still blinking on and off. She focused on the scanner and the two green dots ahead.

"Hornets, I've lost some heatsinks, but I'll be OK until we get back to base. I'm going to open up to full speed, but don't run off, will you?" She paused as she watched the speed indicator creep upwards. The temperature bars climbed, but stayed within tolerable limits. Berry could feel the waste heat bleeding into the cabin, but the need to get back to the cover of the base overrode the desire to stay cool. Her comms crackled.

"Berry, I just saw a contact. Nine o'clock. Didn't get a chance to see what it was."

"Acknowledged." Berry sometimes forgot that she now had another pair of eyes in the lance that were as good in many ways as those of her own Raven. The company techs still had no idea how it worked, but the Cougar was a formidable recon platform in its own right. "Change course, right twenty degrees."

The confirmation of an enemy contact at the edge of their 2km scanner range was a seriously unwanted complication at this stage. Her own mech was a mess and in need of some serious repairs. Angel and Virus were in better shape, but unless the enemy contacts were few in number and weakly armed, their light mechs would not hold out well against another attack. She also had to consider that 'Doorbell I' was only the first of a series of missions. The recon lights of Hornet lance would be needed again. Jeopardising the lance at this early stage would compromise operations badly later down the line. It also seemed that the contact could hold pace with them, which was still more unsettling. (The idea that the dots she and Angel had seen were different vehicles was just too horrible to contemplate, implying as it did the existence of any number of enemies, waiting out there in the desert in relays.) Whoever had missed that airbase would be getting a serious grilling when they returned to Wingate.

She considered the enemy units they knew of. There had been the three heavy mechs from the base, plus the crippled Crusader which would have been unable to make it this far in this time with the damage it had sustained. None of the heavies they had encountered had sensors anything like as good as her and Angel's. The enemy or enemies they had momentarily spotted knew how far to stay out to avoid being positively ID'd. A normal Warhammer, for example, wouldn't be able to do this. Herself and Angel would be able to see it long before it knew it was anywhere near them. In this respect, the heavies would be blundering about in the dark whilst Hornet lance were bathed in radiant sunshine. The same could be said for the Bulldog that Berry had had on scope as they had barrelled away from the base. The tank, like any normal armour, would be very myopic in comparison to the two recon mechs and would most likely have been sent back to defend the base, where its weak senses could be supplemented by those of the base itself. The blind leading the blind.

She weighed up further possibilities. It was certain that the helicopter squadron would have reported the location of their action to whoever or whatever was in range, so it was likely their approximate location was known to the enemy. The heavies were too short-sighted and too slow to keep up, but there was the possibility of a third party passing on information about the Hornets' location and how far they should stay away to remain out of sensor range. Berry had fought in engagements where mech forces had used infantry or light armour as their eyes and ears, meaning they could choose their engagements with more certainty of success. Berry estimated they had been skirmishing with the choppers long enough to give the heavies time to overtake them.

It was also possible that the contacts were another squadron of choppers from the undetected air base. And if the contacts were keeping up and maintaining a parallel course, they could be light tanks or recon skimmers with upgraded sensor packages. Not much of a threat on their own, but potentially deadly in terms of who they might pass their information on to.

If the contacts were running parallel to the path the Hornets were taking, by returning to Nav Epsilon they would effectively be pointing a huge, flashing neon sign at the base for all to see. They had to ID the contacts. It was their job, after all. Berry sighed again.

"We gotta find out what those contacts are, Hornets," she declared. She noticed she had said 'contacts'. Plural.

There was a period of silence.

"Do we really have to?" asked Virus. "Can we not return to base and let the rest of the force sort out whatever it is?"

"That way we reveal to whoever they are where our base is," Berry responded. "We go back to Nav Omega, they shadow us back there and the rest of our guys come out and find no-one to shoot at, as they've gone back to wherever they came from to gather as many mechs as they can."

Berry imagined Virus had his grim face on. "I guess so," he answered eventually.

"Just so," said Berry. "We need to go see what's out there. You two turn west. I want you to hold full throttle on parallel courses on heading two-six-zero, with a separation of 150 metres. I'll be behind you, but I have to be careful about getting hit."

"Like we _don't_?" goggled Angel.

"If you get hit, you'll be annoyed. If I get hit, I'm toast. Come on. You know I'd do it for you if it were the other way round." She heard Virus snort. Angel maintain a dignified silence.

"OK, I want you to turn and split... _now!_" The Cougar and the Spector turned and separated like clockwork. Berry thudded on to the point where they had turned and did the same.

"Eyes open, guys, especially you, Angel."

"No contacts yet, Sir. No, wait, there is one... no, it's gone. Right on the edge. Skimmer. Bolted as soon as I came into sensor range. I think this may be a trap."

"No shit, sister, but we've got to find out enemy strength and composition. Any skimmers and light tanks we can handle. Anything bigger we can outrun, especially as we have 2 klicks headstart. If my well-documented sixth sense kicks in, we'll scram. Until then, we keep going to see what's in the 'hood."

"Errr, correct me if I'm wrong," interjected Virus, "but wasn't your famous sixth sense involved in the incident in which we lost China and Pacquet?"

In her cockpit, Berry flushed.

"Shut the fuck up."

China and Pacquet. The Shale Canyon Joyride. That was unfair and Virus knew it. They'd all been fucked over that night and it had been Berry who had managed to get the rest of them out of there after China had been jumped at the head of the column. Pacquet had been hit by an Arrow IV strike on the way out. There was nothing anybody could have done. It could have been any of them. Just dumb luck. Not something Berry needed on her mind right now. The canyon had been her call, but she'd had no way of knowing that it was an ambush. They were a recon force and it was their job to find things like that out. Pacquet and China had both been good, experienced pilots and had known the risks. Her and Virus would have words when they got back. She didn't remember him suggesting any other route.

"Contact! Three recon skimmers and two fast scout cars at ten o'clock, 1800 metres and closing."

"That's the one!" called Berry. "Hold course, kids. Let them get in range, then pick them off. They're trying to get us to wade into them and leave ourselves open to the main strike from somewhere around three o'clock. We gotta keep the speed up and stay on course, 'cos then we've got more outs. Let them show us where they are."

"Roger."

"Roger, there."

Berry watched as her lancemates turned their guns to face the threats.

"1200 metres," announced Angel. "Virus, you're closer to the bogies than me. You should be getting them on your scope any second."

"I'm in!" shouted Virus, joyfully. "Two skimmers. Taking out the closest now. 800 metres. Cher-_ching!_" A red dot disappeared from Berry's sensors.

"Two more skimmers coming into my range. One down." Angel fired again and this time Berry was able to see the flash and cloud from the explosion as ammunition or some other explosive cooked off. "Two down. All skimmers accounted for. You got confirm on our wheeled friends, Virus?" Berry could hear the sass coming back into Angel's voice. She had been scared by the idea of being lured into a trap, but now she had forgotten all that and was having fun.

"Yep, two scout cars at about ten o'clock. The first is trying to cut across us. Well _that's _not going to work. Large laser charged and... Dammit! He went into a dip."

"Ha ha! Pay attention, Virus. That's another one to me."

"Balls." Virus went quiet. Berry checked her scope again.

"Hey, people. There's another scout car out there. I'm sitting in a mech with more holes than a sieve. I don't even want to face a peasant with a bow and arrow, let alone a scout car." Berry's HUD and data screens were becoming increasingly erratic as heat levels wavered on the edge of dangerous. There was no way of telling what damage the Raven would be able to take.

"Worry not, sir. I've got it." Berry looked to her left and saw a beam from Virus's mech find its target. There was no explosion, however. "I hit it, but it's still breathing. Do you want us to break off?"

"No," broadcast Berry. "Stay on course. I'll handle it." She swivelled her Raven's torso to track the scout car. She would need it within 450 metres to get the reach on it, and she guessed the scout car would be in exactly the same situation."

"Come on, fucko. 600 metres. 550. 500. 450..." she and the scout car fired simultaneously. Her heat scale jumped to critical levels. The scout car erupted in a spectacular, fiery explosion, with elements leaving flaming trails through the air before crashing and tumbling across the desert. Its lasers passed behind the Raven.

"Good shootin', cap'n!" laughed Virus.

"This thing just isn't dissipating heat. Another shot or hit and it's just going to overload and shut down. I'll have to..."

"Contact!" shouted Angel. "One thirty on the clock. Scope says it's a Warhammer." There was a fraction of silence as Berry considered issuing an order, but Angel beat her to it. "Another contact! Catapult, one o'clock. And another. Two Catapults. Heading straight for us. They're adjusting to account for our course and speed." Berry suddenly felt cold.

"For the _love_ of _God!_" she spat. "Change course to heading 220˚. Get AWAY! Hopefully they'll follow and we'll be able to call out the big guns to cut them down when we get close enough to Omega. Until then, don't endanger yourselves." She threw the Raven into a hard left turn. Another red dot appeared.

"Shit! Now I'm showing a Highlander coming in from the left. U-TURN, EVERYONE! The only way out of this is the way we came in." She was suddenly coursing with adrenaline. "Keep your heads down! We'll retrace our steps and get the rest of the battle group to meet us."

"Jesus!" exclaimed Virus. "That Highlander has got range. He just missed me with a slug the size of a dropship."

"Gauss rifle. Just keep moving. He's got range, but not much speed." The lance had now performed a rapid about-face, but Virus's turn had taken him closer to the Highlander than he would have liked. Instead of forming a triangle, the Hornets were now arranged in a line, with Berry's battered Raven at the front and Virus's Spector bringing up the rear.

"Motherfucker!" he howled. "If one of those shells catches me, I'm going to have more hole than mech left under me! That last one must have missed by less than an inch!"

"Virus, will you shut the fuck up?" answered Berry, bluntly. Virus left his communications channel open and Berry was able to hear him breathing under the sparse soundtrack of bleeps, chirrups and warning chimes in his cockpit as the Spector tried to avoid being targeted. Berry took a second to evaluate the situation, but was interrupted by an 'enemy detected' tone. She took a deep breath.

"Heads up! We've got another mech ahead. Archer, eleven o'clock, 1800 metres out… 1700… 1600 and closing. Follow me on heading 315. We're going to have to slip through the gap between the Archer and the rest of the units incoming from seven o'clock. Virus, this will be a bit hot for you, as you'll be their closest target, but just keep moving."

"Thank you, sir. My cup runneth over. Should we not break right? The Warhammer is closer to closing the gap on our left than the Highlander is on our right."

"The Highlander has more range and breaking right would mean we had to take the long way round. Don't question, Virus. Just do it." She took a deep breath. "And guys, if I get hit, don't hang around. Get back to Omega and get yourselves safe. That's an order."

"Acknowledged, sir."

"Acknowledged."

There was a brief calm. Berry checked her temperature gauge. Falling slowly, but still too high. Heatsinks obviously shot to hell. The only dissipation would be coming as heat bled off in the airstream passing over the skin of the Raven, turning the whole mech into one big, but inefficient heatsink. This process would slowly reduce the ambient temperature, but any further exterior input would blow it through the roof and shut the mech down.

"OK, Hornets. Archer at 800 metres. Heading 315 on my mark. MARK!"

As one, the lance hung a left and aimed for open space.

Berry heard a lock-on tone.

Oh God, no, she thought. A full volley from an Archer. 40 LRMs incoming. She checked the instrument panel. ECM warning light flashing. Out of action.

"Good luck, guys." A PPC bolt lanced across in front of her. Jaws closing.

"Taking fire here," she heard Virus calmly intone. "PPCs and LRMs. No hits yet." She heard the symphony of synthesised tones of a mech cockpit during a battle once more from Virus's radio channel. A prominent tone announced a missile lock-on, immediately countered by the '_screeeeee_' of the Spector's ECM kicking in to jam it. There was a muffled explosion that Berry guessed was a near-miss.

A green point appeared at the edge of the scanner. Approaching fast.

"Friendlies ahead." She heard her own voice, calm but with an edge of surprise.

"I heard there was a party going on."

"Falco?"

Then the Raven was bodily lifted into the air and thrown to the ground. In its weakened state, the Raven was flattened by the wall of missiles like a sandcastle before a tidal wave. The cockpit lit up with the glow of detonations and the flash of missile motors and was engulfed by a sound like hell as the projectiles tried to pummel her into the desert sand. The spindly mech crashed and rolled.


	3. Chapter 3

Berry came around to the sound of radio chatter cut with the hiss of static. It sounded hushed and distant, like a storm heard from an armoured bunker. She was laying on her back, looking up and was no longer wearing her helmet. As her vision cleared, she saw a wide expanse of blue sky through the wraparound screen of the downed Raven. She felt restful. Then a shadow fell across her. The bulky silhouette of an Archer, standing over her. Flashing lights. Explosions. Fountains of flame and smoke cascading from the Archer's chest. Unfamiliar from this angle, and strangely beautiful. She lost consciousness again.

...and woke with a start. It was all just a bright light. She gasped. The air was warm and she was... in bed?

"She's awake!"

A warm, familiar voice. She tried to move, but she seemed tied up, somehow. Her vision was gradually clearing. It was still blurry, but she began to make out shapes. Dark patches on a white background. There were still bright lights.

She felt a movement next to her.

"Back with us, then, hero?"

Familiar voice again. She sounded happy. Good for her.

"Where the hell am I?" Her voice sounded disjointed and too loud, like a badly dubbed film.

"You're safe. Calm down, hero. We're back at the base. We won."

Well that sounded like good news, although she couldn't guess where this base was or what had been won.

"I can't see."

"Calm down. It'll pass. You've been unconscious for quite a while and your body needs a little time to remember how all of its systems are supposed to mesh together."

Berry blinked. Her vision was still unclear.

"Why was I unconscious? Was I hurt?"

The voice chuckled warmly. "Have you gone and lost your memory, captain? Don't say I'm going to have to tell you all the details of our juicy love affair again. Last time nearly wore me out."

"Love affair? With you?"

The voice laughed.

"Only kidding, cap. Only kidding. I hope your sense of humour is recovering quicker than your eyesight." Berry was briefly disappointed. She liked the voice and its owner sounded like fun.

"So, captain Behringer. Have you really lost your memory? Do you want me to remind you of the recent past? Will I have to walk you through endless pictures of us on random worlds standing next to big pieces of camouflaged machinery?" Behringer! That was it! Her name was Heather Behringer, callsign Berry. She was a mech pilot. She was the head of a scout lance for a merc company. The lovely voice belonged to Angel, her second-in-command. Her real name was Amy Guerrero and her mech was called the _Puss In Boots_ and had a cartoon picture of a sexy cat in long boots painted on the mech's armour under the canopy. She remembered that because she had helped her paint it a few weeks ago. It was a Cougar, and Angel had been very sketchy about where it had come from. She was from somewhere in the St. Ives Compact, had tanned skin, dark brown eyes, a bouncy shock of tightly-curled black hair and was very beautiful. When she was piloting she kept her unruly hair in check under a black headscarf and her helmet had a deeply polished mirror visor that Berry always thought showed a sharper image of life than life itself, except that the world in Angel's visor was backwards and curved like a freakshow mirror. She was also Berry's best friend.

"I don't think the slideshow will be necessary, Angel. You said my name just then and things are coming back to me. We were on a mission on... " she strained to think of the name of the world, "…Camp Marriott. We did the job, then we got jumped by a squadron of attack choppers and then a reinforced lance of heavies and assaults. After that it gets a bit hazy."

Berry thought she could hear Angel's silky voice ripple with a smile. "Well, we have plenty of time. I'll tell you how great we were."

"...You said there was a friendly on the edge of the scope. I picked it up, too, but as I did, you got hit by a whole salvo of LRMs from the Archer we were trying to evade. Your Raven went down and stayed down. On sensors it said that you were destroyed. We carried on, trying to duck fire from both the Archer and the Warhammer coming in from our left. I took over command and told Virus to keep to the plan and escape North, as you had ordered. He tried to argue, but then the friendly turned out to be Falco, coming back to tell us that the cavalry were on their way. He said he'd been sent back to order us to keep on our then-current heading until we crossed through the friendly front, then for all three of us to break East. By then, all the bogies should have been engaged and we could circle round the edge of the combat area, making 'snatch team' strikes on targets of opportunity and generally making a nuisance of ourselves. Which is what we did. Virus even managed to claim one of the Catapults as a kill when he hit it in the rear torso and it went critical. He was made up about that."

Berry smiled weakly. She thought about saying that she wanted to talk to Virus about the Shale Canyon jibe, but decided not to. He'd wanted to disobey orders to come back for her, so she guessed it had just been an insensitive moment on his part rather than an accusation of whatever kind. He was only young, after all. Kids sometimes say dumb things.

"How many of them came out to find us?"

"All of them, I think. Bison, Charger and Dingo lances, plus a couple of extra mechs that had been captured or salvaged more or less intact after they had been lured out of the base during 'Doorbell I' and piloted as back-up by members of the tech crew."

Berry grinned. "They think that much of us?"

"They really do, it would seem." Angel giggled. "Some even more so."

Berry furrowed her brow.

"We thought at times that a certain member of the Caribinieri was going to get out of his mech and start taking on the Capellans with his bare hands."

"The Archer." That made sense of another stray strand of memory.

"Luca sends his regards, his wishes for a speedy recovery and probably a lot more besides. As soon as battle was joined, he shot his way through to where you were laying, then stood over your mech, sirens wailing and lights flashing, basically daring anyone to try and force him to move. If the odds had been less in our favour, he might have been killed. As it was he took damage, but gave out a lot more. We salvaged another Archer, so anything he lost should get repaired easily enough." She let out a trickling laugh.

"Did everyone get out OK?"

"No casualties on either side. You were the closest anyone came to getting hurt. All of the Liao heavies were destroyed or surrendered, but all of the pilots either ejected or survived. The mediums that Dingo lance lured out were dealt with without loss. We salvaged the Archer and command are currently negotiating with the pilot of the Warhammer to take him on after the end of the campaign. We also salvaged a Blackjack from the earlier engagement. It turns out that the Capellans have made some unconventional recruiting decisions which may come back to haunt them."

"They have mercs in the ranks?"

"They have _conscripted_ mercs into the ranks. There were a few amongst the mechs we took down today. They say they were employed on long term guard contracts on the planet, but that a few months ago they were given the choice of joining the Liao militia or having their mechs forfeited."

"Did any refuse?"

"Some did. They were threatened with force but what happened to them after that is not known."

"Nasty. I'm presuming that command will be trying to use this in the rest of our campaign."

"You betcha. All-frequency broadcasts to all bandits at first contact. Safe conduct for mercenaries."

"And chaos and confusion reign supreme."

"Of course. Command say your actions were exemplary. Someone from the command group will be over later to have a word. They say that they have some new information they need your expertise on."

"In my condition? They must be pretty desperate. I can't even see. It really would be the blind leading the blind." She laughed. "Where am I, by the way?" Berry looked around at the blurry, bright surroundings. "I don't think I've been here before."

"Medical centre. Basically an APC painted white with red crosses on it. Lockers are full of medical gear. There's another compartment the other side of the bulkhead with a small surgery in it."

"We have a surgeon?"

"Robot surgeon. Seems to work, though." Angel nodded towards Berry's bandaged arm. Berry pondered for a moment.

"What happened to my mech?"

"Salvage brought it in after you'd been extracted. I asked after it and they said it could be repaired pretty easily. Needs a lot of rewiring, some armour and some parts, but nothing that can't be easily bought, borrowed or botched. When the Raven went down, we thought it had been destroyed, but it turns out it's as tough as you. The missile strike just caused your precious mount to overheat and shut down. You were unconscious and couldn't start it up again, so we all feared the worst. It'll live."

"We're in the right place for parts. It's a Liao mech, after all." Berry sighed. "Actually, there might be some parts in store on the bases we're tasked with attacking. Has anyone been back to Doorbell I?"

Angel laughed. "Actually, Falco went back. The Warhammer pilot told command that the Crusader jock whose mech we disabled was a merc who'd been conscripted. He would likely surrender rather than raise trouble, especially given the state of his mech. This gave Falco an idea, so he snuck out of Epsilon and went back to the first base. He came back an hour later and told command that he had spoken to the pilot of the Crusader, had come to a deal and was the mech's new owner, so they couldn't claim it as booty or salvage. He apparently brokered a part-exchange and swapped his Locust plus some cash for the damaged Crusader. As the Crusader pilot is a merc, owns his own mech and was still nominally operational, Falco says it's all legal. Command are going nuts about it. But what with all the issues surrounding the Capellans' compulsory enrolment, he may get to keep it as the MRBC will never accept what happened to the mercs. Command have said that at the very least he has to stay in the Locust until the end of the campaign, as otherwise they won't have a recon lance left."

"I always knew he was a wily fox, that Falco. It's always the quiet ones you have to look out for." Berry smiled broadly.

"He came to see you, before he went back. You were still unconscious. Virus did too. He's on patrol now."

"Tell them I thank them for their kindness and that they are both welcome back any time. I will doubtless be here until our friend the robot doctor says otherwise."

"Command have given you a bit of leeway on that score. It seems the robot doc is fine at putting you back together, but less adept at estimating recovery times. He suggested that after breaking your arm and severe burns, you should convalesce for a period of not less than 12 hours before resuming duty."

"Tell him that I'll think about it."

Berry laid back and closed her eyes.

"If you're going to rest then I'll leave you to it." Berry felt that ripple again that she felt denoted a smile. "Your husband is outside. Shall I tell him to come back later?"

"_HUSBAND?!_" Berry jerked bolt upright in her bed, but the only answer she got was a peal of giggles as she heard Angel stepping out through the door of the APC.


	4. Chapter 4

Berry was awakened from a light sleep by a knock on the rear ramp of the APC. She called "yeah" and the 'cat flap' door opened.

"You decent, Captain Heather Behringer?" asked a male voice from behind the door.

"Yeah, come in," Berry responded. She propped herself up on her elbows and blinked. A wiry man in a leather biker jacket peered round the door.

"How's your eyesight?" he asked, before stepping into the small, bright room and planting himself in the chair at the end of the bed.

"Better, thanks. How are you, Captain Danny Speke?"

"Very good, very good. Doorbell I was a triumph, despite the Cappies springing some surprises on us. Everyone came home, we got the job done and we got some new toys into the bargain. Salvage just got back from stripping the base at Alpha and as well as the Archer and Blackjack they took from the field earlier on, they found two brand new Phoenix Hawks in one of the hangars and a ton of other goodies."

"Brand new Phoenix Hawks? Do the Cappies have a Phoenix Hawk line?"

"They're new variants. PXH-4Ls, to be exact. Built as part of the Project Phoenix deal on St. Ives."

"What about Falco's Crusader?"

Danny smiled. "Falco's Crusader got brought back as well. We negotiated with him that we'd repair it and lease it from him until the end of the campaign. He seemed happy enough with that."

Berry chuckled. "He really did a number there, didn't he? None of us thought he had it in him."

"He did us a favour in the end. We would have taken it and then only had to give it back as soon as the pilot went to the MCRB. Command was livid when he first told us what he'd done, but we were laughing about it within half an hour. Good luck to him. I hope it does well for him."

"Anyway, what can I do for you? I'm sure you didn't just come here to tell me how well we'd done out of the salvage."

"No, you're right." Danny reached into his jacket and pulled out a brown envelope. He tossed it on to the bed. "I want you to have a look at these."

Berry took the envelope and opened it. A sheaf of glossy photographic prints in both colour and black and white spilled out on to the bed. She furrowed her brow.

"Hard copies? What are they? Wedding photos?"

"They're easier to carry, don't need a power source and don't have issues with pixellation. Besides which, if I gave you electronic copies then you wouldn't be able to see what you're looking for."

"How so?"

"Even with the super-high res imaging systems you get in electronic displays now, the resolution wouldn't be high enough for our purposes at the magnifications of these images we require."

"Not wedding photos, then. Thank God. I was led to believe I was married for a few seconds recently. It was not a pleasant experience."

Danny looked confused.

"Ask Angel. She was being devilish."

"Praise the lord. Ask if she fancies being devilish anywhere near me." He grinned wickedly.

Berry haphazardly gathered the prints together with her good arm and began to look through them.

"I've seen these," she said. "They're the orbital recon shots of the bases in the valley. We've been over them dozens of times. Me and the rest of the Hornets spent two hours looking over them on a folding table before we started our bit of Doorbell I, as well as all the time we spent on the ship planning the raid."

"Indeed," replied Danny, "but you were looking at the four bases."

"That's what we were told were the important bits. We were asked to work out a best approach to each base."

"I know. I was the one who asked you to do it."

Berry looked at him inquiringly and shrugged.

"We have been reviewing the recon imagery since your lance returned from Doorbell I. Angel, Falco and Virus all confirmed that a squadron-strength unit of attack helicopters, consisting of Warriors, Cavalrys and Nightwinds, attacked you from the south-west as you were running in from the base at Alpha. We checked the gun cameras and were obviously able to confirm that this was the case and that you guys were hard pressed for a while. We thought the same as you, that someone had made a mess of the photo interpretation, but we all pawed all over the imagery and couldn't find anywhere that those choppers could have come from."

"So what, then? House Liao has developed a VTOL that grows on trees?"

"That's why I brought you the recon images. We reconnoitered all of the continent before we landed anyone here, and went over everything within rush-in range with a fine-tooth comb. If there had been an airbase within range of any of the bases slated for a raid, we would have found it. The reason that we missed the chopper base is that there isn't one there. At least, not one that we can see."

"You mean it's hidden. Where? On the side of the valley? Under an overhang? In a cave? I wouldn't fancy landing a chopper in a confined space like that."

"Look at the last batch of pictures."

Berry struggled one-handed to shuffle the pictures from the back of the pack.

"Do you want a hand with those?" asked Danny.

"No, I'm fine." She finally managed to get the relevant images to the top of the pile.

"The marsh. Yeah, we thought it was a bit weird there being a marsh in a desert, but I've seen stranger things. It could be a type of oasis, or some form of spring or stream bringing water from the hills surrounding the valley and spreading it out across the valley floor. There's not much growing there, but the water could be contaminated with salt or some poisonous mineral that prevents anything from taking hold."

"Look at the blow-ups." Berry put the original image down on the bed and flipped through the enlargements one by one.

"These are details of the edge of the marsh. They're pretty blurry."

"They're blurrier than they should be. There is a detail of one of the bases there for comparison."

"Not pin-sharp, but I can make out individual people. Were these images taken with the same camera?"

"The very same, only an hour or so apart."

"So the question is what happened to the camera between these two shots?"

"No, the question is what happened to the target. Look at the last image and compare it to the other marsh detail."

"It's a different piece of marsh."

"No, that's the _same _piece of marsh, taken six hours later from exactly the same geostat position. The location is identical…"

"…But the marsh has changed. The patterns of light and dark are different. And what is this black line at the edge? I'm no expert on Camp Marriott geology, but I have seen examples of terrain changing over the course of a few hours. I suppose these patterns of light and dark could be patches of water bubbling up from subsurface and evaporating." She ran her finger down the dark line running down the print. "I don't have any ideas about this, though." She sat for a few seconds, deep in thought. Danny shifted in his chair.

"Am I allowed to smoke in here?" he asked.

"If you want to set the smoke detectors off and get us both soaked, then sure." He pouted and slouched in his chair. Berry went back to the images.

"You say these images were taken in the same place, only six hours apart."

"Yep," said Danny.

"Which way is north in these shots?"

"Top edge is north."

Berry's brow furrowed.

"That's why the dark line isn't in the first shot. The sun was in the wrong place. I was thinking it was a trench or a stream or something. But it's not. It's a _shadow_. There is something running along the edge of the marsh we can't see casting a shadow when the sun is in a certain position."

Danny smiled. "Getting warm," he murmured.

Berry frowned and stared at the shadow running down the image.

"I guess that if there was something there, we would be able to see the shadow on the other side before the sun passed over it."

Danny stared at the ceiling. Berry's eyes suddenly opened wide.

"This is the base," she whispered. "This isn't a marsh. It's an image of a marsh projected on a surface. The surface is above the level of the desert, so this section only casts a shadow when the sun is in the west. When it's in the east, the shadow would be cast on the other side of the base." She placed her good hand over her mouth. "My God. That's incredible."

"Bingo. Took us longer than that to work it out. It's also why we used a wet film camera to take the images. Digital, for all its advantages, isn't good enough at these levels of magnification. The camera tends to flatten out the details or make them more prominent than they really are, and when you get down to this level of magnification you end up looking at individual pixels. Wet film is bulky, messy and takes forever to process in comparison, but a good wet film camera is still better for detail, which is why we always carry one. We have managed to work out the size of the base by taking images in the area at different times and seeing where the shadows fall."

"So how big _is _it?"

"From what we've managed to work out, nearly sixty square kilometres."

Berry gasped. "It's fucking huge. That must be where the choppers came from."

"And a lot more besides. God only knows what the Cappies have got hidden under that big top. You could hide a dozen divisions under there and still have space for an airport."

Berry looked at the glossies once more.

"A stealth base to go with their stealth lances. This thing could upset the whole balance of power in this part of the Inner Sphere. If they develop this technology then it will become impossible to pin down any Capellan emplacement. Attackers would have to check out every glitch and smudge on every recon image. And even if they could identify a base, they would have to send down recon to see what the Cappies had hiding under it. That's if they're not using it already, of course."

Now it was Danny's turn to shrug. "Who knows?" he said. "But we need to know what's in that base or we're going to have to get off planet without completing the mission. It may be that this is the reason we're here, but it doesn't look like it. If there had been a chance of discovering new tech of this magnitude, then you can bet your ass that the Feds would have sent some of their own here, and heavily tooled up, too. Anyway, we're going to need some covert surveillance under the big top. We have four Liao mechs, including two lights that still have the shrink-wrap round them. We're going to try and smuggle some of our people into the base in them."

He cleared his throat.

"Any volunteers?"

Berry looked down at her injured arm. She flexed the hand.

"My doctor recommended that I rest for 12 hours, but I think he was just erring on the safe side."

Danny smiled.

"We knew we could count on you. Prepare for mission briefing in one hour."


	5. Chapter 5

"Can you make it kneel down?" Berry asked Danny. "I have difficulty getting into these things when I'm all in one piece, let alone when bits of me are broken."

"How about making it lie down?" responded Danny. "Or maybe I should bury it up to its neck in the sand so you can just pop the canopy and step in?"

"Yeah, that'd be great."

The two mechwarriors walked up the ramp and into the hold of the dropship. Most of the recesses were empty. The machines that usually filled them were on patrol or under repair elsewhere. Only three were occupied. The two Phoenix Hawks and the salvaged Blackjack filled adjacent bays, the pristine Hawks rendering the scorched and scarred older mech almost invisible in the gloomy half-light of the cavernous cargo space.

"Take your pick," said Danny. He lit a cigarette and wandered off to look at a control panel.

"So they're identical?"

"As far as we can tell."

"Then I'll take the one on the left."

Danny pressed a button. A collapsible walkway folded up from the floor and created a staircase, allowing Berry access to the cockpit of her chosen machine.

"Come on," said Danny. "I'll carry your bag."

"I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. Does your animated scaffolding kit here not include a lift? I'm an injured woman. I can't waste my energy climbing stairs!" Berry waved her good arm towards the series of stairways stretched out above them.

Danny giggled, then gestured for Berry to climb the staircase first.

"No way, pervert! You go first. I don't want to climb the fucking stairs as it is. I'm certainly not going first so you can spend the whole time staring at my peachy ass."

"As if I would," replied Danny, feigning hurt. They looked at each other for a second, before bursting into giggles.

"Get up the stairs, pervert!" shouted Berry, and kicked Danny sharply in the behind.

The canopy of the Phoenix Hawk was already open. The level of the walkway allowed Berry to step inside and make herself as comfortable as she could. Danny opened her bag and passed her helmet over.

"Do you want anything else from here?" he asked.

"No. We're going to be taking as little crap with us as possible." Berry gingerly manipulated her helmet, decorated with aggressive cartoon hornets on either side, into position to place with her good arm.

"The stick's on the wrong side." Finally satisfied, Berry wedged the helmet onto her head.

"Huh?"

"The control stick. It's on the left armrest of the seat. My left arm is broken. Besides which I'm right-handed anyway."

"Oh." Danny walked around the gantry to look into the cockpit of the second Phoenix Hawk. "Stick is on the left in this one, too. What happened to good, old-fashioned centre-control joysticks?"

"Beats me. Someone told me once that the smaller sticks mean you can make the things handle more smoothly and more quickly with digital control processors. Sort of fly-by-wire system. I've never seen the problem with centre control, myself. I've always used one."

"I'll get Amy to come up and have a look. She's the mech tech genius." Danny pulled a small radio from his pocket. He walked a short distance down the gantry and said a few words into the communicator.

Berry regarded the cockpit of her temporary ride. She'd never piloted a Phoenix Hawk, but doubted it would make any difference if she had. The view from the pilot's seat was like an air traffic control terminal. More lights, digital screens and head-up display panels than she had ever seen in a mech before. It made her Raven, itself only a few years old, look frumpy and almost antiquated. Whatever the old P-Hawks used to ride like, she was sure this new model would be like a starship in comparison. The canopy was still open and she knew that there were still more displays and switches mounted there, above and below the screen. Jeez. She scanned round the boards of instruments and lights again. One at eye-level in her left quarter was mounted on a movable panel at the end of an articulated arm. It had a padded loop fixed to the bottom edge of the panel to allow easier movement. Berry pondered for a moment how she could stop it swinging about the cockpit during hard maneuvering, before discovering a switch on the loop that locked the arm and held it still.

"Someone has really thought about this baby," she murmured out loud. She bought the panel closer and locked it in place closer to centreline and about 15 degrees above her line of sight. "What the hell is on here, anyway?" She read the coloured warning panels.

"Ah," she said. "Danny!"

Danny's head popped round the edge of the canopy.

"Don't worry, Amy knows how to switch the stick. It's a plug and play system. There are empty sockets on both left and right under detachable panels. She said she can switch it over to right-handed spec in a couple of minutes just using a screwdriver. The warning panels switch over, too. You can configure the whole cockpit to your own requirements, so you have what you feel to be the important stuff closer to your eyeline or whatever." He exhaled smoke and flicked his cigarette away in a fashion that implied great satisfaction at having been the messenger for this information.

"Great," replied Berry, laconically. "Does she know how to translate the panels, too?"

Danny's face fell.

"All the annotation and labelling in here seems to be in Mandarin. I haven't booted up the computer yet, but I betcha that when I do, it'll talk to me in Chinese."

"I could translate the panels for you, if you like, but it'd take a while." Amy Chu, the Herons' assistant chief battlemech technician, ducked her head into the cockpit from Berry's left. "I bet I speak better Mandarin than this crate, anyway. I could certainly correct its slightly wayward grammar and punctuation." She grinned and leant forward until the upper half of her petite frame was inside the cockpit aperture, and her elbows were resting on the lip.

"Sorry Amy. We just need a bit of tech help with this machine. I need the stick moved from the left space to the right and if you could get it to speak English to me, I'd be very grateful."

"No problem. Hang on a second." She ducked out of the cockpit again and returned momentarily with the end of a thick, yellow external power feed cable, which she proceeded to plug into a socket just below where she had been, before resuming her position leaning on the cockpit edge.

"OK, can you boot up the computer? The switch is the highlighted one on the panel next to your right elbow. Done that? Sweet. Now, let's see what we have here."

The screens scattered over the inner surface of the cockpit lit up in unison, displaying the Ceres Metals logo and a few lines of Mandarin script, accompanied by a booming audio message, also in Mandarin and equally indecipherable.

"Whoa!" exclaimed Amy, and reached over Berry to adjust a fader on the other side of the seat. The voice was reduced to a more reasonable volume and continued its message less stridently.

"OK… let's see what we have here. Well, that's a new one. 'Constructed for the sole use of the Capellan Confederation Armed Forces. Unauthorized use will render the user subject to court marshall and execution.' Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where's the set-up page?"

She leaned into the cockpit again and started inspecting panels and feeling under consoles. Shortly, she said "Aha!" and a thin tray slid out of a panel near Berry's left knee in a cushioned and efficient display of restraint. On it was a matt black finish computer keyboard, still in its plastic wrapping, connected to a curly data cable.

"Aha!" said Amy again. She picked the keyboard up, ripped the plastic off, and moved it to Berry's left armrest. She pressed a key and a menu screen appeared on the main display. She began tapping on the keyboard and new screens began rapidly flashing up and disappearing. Berry and Danny watched this for a minute or so until Amy spoke again.

"There you go," she beamed. "Should now be set up with English as the default language. I'll also configure the displays to be as close to the layout of your Raven as possible. Command have asked me to install a secondary short-wave comms system, to allow you to communicate with any of our units within range without being overheard by any bogies, so I'll get that sorted before you take this thing out." She smiled broadly again, then began rummaging down the side of Berry's seat.

"The panels have changed to English, too. Wow!" laughed Berry.

Amy's head popped up next to her.

"Slaved LCD instrument panels. Cool! I'd heard about them, but I haven't seen one up until now. Makes set-up easier, anyway. Heh!" She dived down the side of seat again.

Berry went back to reading the panels. They were mostly dedicated to the same functions as the ones in her Raven, although the P-Hawk had some interesting extras, including a stellar navigation system and an 'entertainment suite', the nature of which she could only guess at. She swapped a couple of panels around and changed the angle of others, but left most of them as they were. The original layout was remarkably similar to that of the Raven, leading Berry to wonder if the Cappies had a standard internal cockpit configuration for their mechs. Certainly the previous models Berry had piloted had featured wildly different, and often perversely unhelpful arrangements. Having similarly laid out cockpits for each model of mech would certainly make training and familiarisation simpler, but the generally woeful standard of Capellan piloting suggested that if it were a deliberate policy, then it wasn't helping much.

Amy's tousled head reappeared next to Berry's broken arm again.

"Right, I've freed the weapons grouping system, as for some reason they were locked into a factory default that had them all gathered into one big alpha-strike. Other than that, I'll need some mission-specifics before I can fettle this rather sexy machine any more. I'll need your helmet, too, so I can calibrate it to the mech and give you a bit of extra sharpness. Danny, if you want to take our intrepid lady away and tell her what you want her to do, then she can come back and tell me what she wants me to do. I'll fire both of the P-Hawks up and have them ready and waiting for when you get back."

"Both of them?" asked Berry.

"Well, we're not going to send you out there on your own," answered Danny.

"What's the plan, then, Captain Speke?" asked Berry. "There is a covert Capellan base measuring sixty square kilometres out there. It has been built using what we can only assume is experimental technology. I doubt that I am just going to be able to walk into it and ask the nearest Strategio for the plans."

Berry and Danny had decamped to a nearby APC to talk tactics. They were sat in the rear compartment with the tail ramp down, thinking about the upcoming mission and drinking beer.

"I'm not going to dictate how you do this, Heather."

"You've never called me by my first name before."

"I've never felt the need before. When I asked you if you wanted to do this, you said yes instinctively. You didn't think about it much. It was almost a reflex action. But I want you to think about it now. You're being asked to pilot an unfamiliar mech into an experimental enemy base that is undoubtedly heavily defended. You are injured, you will not be heavily armed and you don't know exactly what you're looking for. The Capellans are not a forgiving enemy and if you are caught, it is possible you will be killed, either in combat or by execution. You have said that you will perform this task, but if you change your mind I won't hold you to it and I won't tell anyone you pulled out. No-one knows about the job anyway, and they certainly don't know you put your name forward for it. Think about it. Don't take too long, as I'm guessing the Cappies might know we're here now and we need to work out what we're going to do about it, but take as long as you feel you need."

Berry smiled at the tautology.

"I'll think about it. I'll tell you what I decide before we leave the APC."

"Either way, we need to work out how we're going to approach this. You have complete freedom over mission parameters and manning. You can't co-opt anyone, though. Anyone you ask to go with you has the same freedom to turn it down that you have, and I want you to make sure they know this, because even if you don't tell them, I certainly will. Given the area the base covers, we have to assume that there will be enough military assets under that colour-shifting canopy to render a frontal assault by the units we have at our disposal an unviable strategy."

"I think that is a reasonable assumption," Berry replied.

"We have, however, four workable Liao mechs, of which three probably have a high enough level of mission-readiness to be viable options."

"What's the third?"

"The Warhammer. Strictly speaking it's a mercenary mech and should be treated as such, but for the purposes of this discussion it counts as a Liao mech, since it has Capellan security clearance and IFF indicators. It also happens to have a friendly pilot who will work with us."

"Who is he?"

"His name is Ryan Khan. He said he was a member of a merc unit called the Trenton Riot Squad, but they were told by the Cappies after four months of garrison duty that they had the choice of either being absorbed wholesale into the CCAF or having their mechs confiscated without compensation. Their CO basically told them to comply with the CCAF orders and join peaceably and then he disappeared. Khan says they were split up and reassigned to CCAF units before anyone really had a chance to question what they were being asked to do. He says that at least one of his former lancemates is now dead because she objected to being conscripted. He's willing to help us."

"You trust him?"

"Oh yes. The Capellans really fucked him over and killed at least one of his friends. He's really pissed and wants a bit of payback."

"Is he stable? I don't want unhinged maniacs hellbent on vengeance involved in any operations."

"He's more stable than you'd expect. He wears a hat taped to the top of his helmet when he's in the cockpit and he talks to himself sometimes, but he's no madder than most of us."

"Sounds positively normal. I've heard of the Trenton Riot Squad. They supplied crowd control to anyone who knew they had a big confrontation with the general public coming. They were usually pretty good at it, too, but it was one of their boys who was responsible for the Printers' Races massacre on Drury Head in '62."

"I've not heard of that one."

"There was a demo at the annual Printers' race meeting over some minor local issue or other and one of the Riot Squad vehicles ended up with protestors standing on it. The vehicle commander got jumpy and started shooting into the air to scare the people off and the shooting spooked the rest of the Squad units and they started firing into the crowd. Everyone scattered, but by the time the shooting stopped there were 150 or so dead and there were a lot of white Riot Squad armour and mechs with big red bloodstains on them. I've seen it happen. You're there in a machine the size of a house and you're trying to stop or head off or turn away a big crowd, and they keep pushing and pushing until some young nimrod hits the red button to remind them who's in charge. Then everyone starts firing, because they think their friends are in trouble and they want to back them up. But they don't know who's shooting or who they're shooting at. Someone shoots at the crowd and suddenly there's a lot of blood and then it becomes obvious where the threat is because that's where someone has fired. Then everyone starts shooting into the crowd. It becomes a sort of collective mania. The crowd becomes one entity and it becomes the target. People shoot wildly and randomly, not even knowing why, beyond the fact that something is there and they don't want to be the one who lets it escape. People die in the crowd. Shot or crushed. First in their dozens and then in their hundreds. Thousands of figures scatter. And suddenly the crowd is gone, there are bodies everywhere and the unit supposed to be policing the gathering are looking at the blood running in the gutters and the bodies ripped to pieces by hundreds of large caliber, ultra-high velocity rounds and they look at each other and they ask, 'What the fuck happened? Where did I just go for thirty seconds?' It happens so easily."

Berry swigged her beer.

"I thought they were mainly tanks, armoured cars and light mechs, but I bet our Ryan won an old Warhammer in a card game sometime. Their natural environments are cities and demonstrations, so they wouldn't normally have any reason for something as big as a Warhammer, unless they're diversifying into traditional merc jobs." Berry took another swig from her beer. "Imagine doing riot control for a living. He's done well. He ought to be as mad as a box of frogs. Fucking hell."

"No riot duty for you, then."

"Don't even joke about it." She glared at Danny. "A battlemech has no place firing on civilians. None at all. You have no idea what even a Stinger can do to an unarmed crowd. We think of machine guns as back-up weapons at best, but they fire depleted-uranium cored slugs the size of beer bottles at a rate of 2000 per minute. You fire one into a crowd and it's carnage. Like a scene from an abbatoir. Just… hell." Berry ran her good hand through her short, spiky hair.

"Anyway, we appear to have strayed somewhat from the point. My plan for breaking into the stealth base would be to take the two P-Hawks and the Warhammer and approach the place from the direction of Alpha, or perhaps up the border with the hills at the edge of the valley, so we look like we've been trying to evade detection after coming from Alpha. I will talk to Khan and ask him about new pilots and how and how often they arrived. They had two new mechs there, so they must have been expecting someone to pilot them. If we say that we had just arrived when the attack on Alpha took place, we hadn't yet been assigned to our machines and we were only able to escape after the battle by breaking into a mech hangar and hotwiring the P-Hawks, then we may be able to explain why they don't know us, how we've ended up piloting two brand new CCAF mechs and how we managed to get away from a serious base assault completely unscathed. That way we look like CCAF pilots, we've saved two new and undamaged machines for them and we come across as heroes rather than cowards. At least, that's the idea. We'll also have to make sure that the P-Hawks don't have any personal gear in them. If we're supposed to have taken them in an emergency then we won't have had time to fill them with furry dice and pictures of lovers. I'll also talk to Khan about detail stuff like what the Cappies called the base we came from, what they call the stealth base, who the commanders are in this area, what the force dispositions are and that kind of thing. I'll probably choose to stay dumb, as we're supposed to have just arrived, but it'll be interesting to see what they choose to tell us and what they don't. That way we'll be able to gauge the level of trust we have with them and what level of freedom we're going to be given, if any."

"What about after you've got in?" asked Danny.

"We'll just have to wing it. I have no idea what we're looking for, or even what it might look like. It will presumably be some kind of projection equipment or big computer module. Whether it's a projection or some kind of chameleon circuit, it's going to take a lot of cooling to run a system over sixty square kilometres, especially in these conditions. I may just look for the biggest cluster of heatsinks I can find. We may have an issue getting images of whatever we find as I don't think the P-Hawks have any dedicated recon systems we can use and fitting our own will just give us away if the Cappies look too hard. Therefore we may have to use gun camera footage. It won't be very detailed, but we'll get as close as we can and hopefully we'll be able to fill in any gaps from memory when we debrief."

"Great so far. You'll blag your way into a secret Liao base and then wander around looking for the very thing they're trying to keep under wraps. Can't fail." Danny looked dubious. "How are you going to get out again?"

"That's where you come in. Do we think the Cappies know we're here and where we are yet?"

"Personally, I would think they know we're here, as they've lost a base and they can't have failed to notice that. Bizarrely, we have no evidence that they know where we are, though. The jumpship in orbit has been monitoring our position and most of the valley and have seen no evidence of any unexpected movements in our area, aerial surveillance or orbital recon within 50,000 square kilometres, so we can only assume that Wingate is safe for the moment."

"In that case, to get out we're going to need you to stage a diversion raid on the base at Beta. It'll need a lot of co-ordination and a lot of recon, as your force is going to have to wait for our signal just out of sight over the horizon from the base. That means you'll be a long way out from Wingate, and if the Cappies _are _watching at Omega, then they will know you have left it undefended and may be able to launch a counterstrike against our base from Delta, Gamma and the Stealth base. We have recon that suggests the level of military strength at the remaining target bases and we know they won't be a pushover."

"One medium lance at Beta, One Heavy and one Light lance at Delta and one light and one reinforced Medium lance at Gamma."

"Exactly. If they all turned up at Wingate while we were off on a jolly somewhere else, we'd end up having to walk home. The dropships are tooled up, but they're sitting ducks on their own. Therefore, we're going to have to make sure we know what's going on at the other bases and you're going to have to be prepared to abort at a second's notice and to get back to defend the Wingate."

"OK. I hear you."

"That notwithstanding, though, we will need you to attack Beta on my mark. Hopefully, that will cause the Strategios at the Stealth base to send reinforcements, which would give us more opportunities to get away. Even better, we could volunteer or they could send us to reinforce Beta, meaning we may be able to overpower whoever we get sent with or swap sides as soon as we arrive at the base and join you in duffing the Capellans up. I damn well hope we get to escape or swap sides outside the base, as otherwise we will have to make a fighting withdrawal, but at the speed of the Warhammer. And I don't fancy the sound of that at all."

"So that's sorted, then. You have a plan."

"I guess so. None of which will help us if we get caught, of course."

"Don't get caught, then."

"Don't worry, Danny." Berry stood up. "I'm way ahead of you on that one."

"So you still want to do it?"

"Never even thought about it." She tossed her empty beer bottle over her shoulder without looking as she stepped out of the personnel carrier. It landed squarely in Danny's lap.


End file.
